Canadian Green Party leader may resign over BDS vote

The leader of Canada’s Green Party is pondering resigning after members voted to support the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, JTA reported on Wednesday.

 

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), Elizabeth May said she is “struggling with the question of whether I should continue as leader or not, quite honestly,” in the wake of the vote last weekend by rank-and-file Greens to support BDS.

 

The party voted on the resolution at its convention in Ottawa over the weekend, despite May’s opposition to the measure.

 

The resolution states that the Green Party “supports the use of divestment, boycott and sanctions that are targeted to those sectors of Israel’s economy and society which profit from the ongoing occupation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories.”

 

It also states that the Green Party “will support such a form of BDS until such time as Israel implements a permanent ban on further settlement construction in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and enters into good faith negotiations with representatives of the Palestinian people for the purpose of establishing a viable, contiguous and truly sovereign Palestinian state.”

 

May, who has condemned BDS as “polarizing, ineffective and unhelpful,” told the CBC she’s “quite certain most of our members don’t support this policy, but weren’t fully engaged in the consensus-building process we normally would have had.”

 

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